This graph shows weather most roadkill in the last couple of years has been nocturnal or diurnal. At first I thought that there would be more nocturnal but due to the amount of squirrels and other diurnal animals that are about this time of year, as this graph shows for seven weeks over the last few years.

In science class we have been doing a project on roadkill in which we had to choose subject such as moon phase, speed limit etc. and how it is related to the numbers of road kill and research it. After we had done this we had to create a graph showing what we had found out. I chose to study whether most roadkill is diurnal or nocturnal. I chose this because animals interest me and I thought I could learn more about nocturnal and diurnal animals this way. I predicted that there would be a lot more nocturnal roadkill because obviously they’re out and about at night. This is when most commuters are coming home from work and they might be tired and not see the animal. Also, it is harder to see an animal crossing the road in the dark.

I wrote my hypothesis based on this and began my research. Doing this research consisted of looking at numbers of roadkill over the years and creating spreadsheet on the information I found. After we had finished we had to create a graph on the data we had found to illustrate the result.

I thought there would be a lot of squirrels but never as much as there turned out to be, almost half of the roadkill was gray squirrels! After I finished my research and took a look at it I realized I had been wrong, more of the roadkill was diurnal, my hypothesis was wrong. Looking back I think this is because most animals are diurnal and the huge amounts of gray squirrels were diurnal, this added up to the end result of diurnal animals being the most amount of roadkill.

Next year I predict round about the same results as this year, seeing as gray squirrels aren’t going down in their numbers! Next time I think I will take a better look at the numbers of what I am researching before I begin my hypothesis.

In language arts we have been reading Seed Folks by Paul Fleichman, the inspiring story of a depressed neighborhood and how a garden brings them all together and helps them get over their personal issues.

After we had finished the book, we made a seed packet to show one of our favorite character’s personality and how that tied in with the plant they are growing for the community lot, which by the time the book has finished has become a proper garden . I chose to do Amir, a man who is missing his home in India and how he thinks that everybody in his new neighborhood is very hostile and separated.

For my second seed packet (which we had to do about our own life I chose to compare the dog to a peach because he is very shy but sweet.)

Our project in math was the stock market and to start it off we were given 10 000 (fake) dollars to spend on three or four stocks of our choice.

After the end of about an hour of browsing stocks decided on three stocks Nike, Dell and SunTrust Banks. I was certain about Nike because I love their running shoe and their store was always busy so I thought it would be popular meaning that it would do well in the stock market. I chose Dell because on ‘historical prices’ it looked like the stocks were stable as they stayed about the same price and also I wanted one of their laptops! I was less sure about SunTrust because I found it when I was browsing through random ticker symbols, it seemed to have the perfect price, high enough to do well but affordable at the same time. At the end of math class that day I felt pretty comfortable about my stock choices.

It turned out that my stocks didn’t actually do too well so if I had to invest in the stock market again I would do a couple of things differently. As far as the choice for my stockswent I think I would have picked more well known stocks, I found out that the lesser known ones (especially SunTrust) were unstable, they obviously had never been heard of because nobody invested in them !

If I could have had the stock market project to do over again I would have picked better known stocks so that more people would have invested in them, they were very unstable. I would have also pulled out of the market sooner because at one point early on in the project my chosen stocks were actually doing well and gaining money.

If you ever decide to invest in the stock market here is some advice .Make sure you chose a stable well known stocks so that people invest in them and they do well. I would have followed my chosen stocks for a couple weeks before investing as to see how well they do and finally you should probably start out with only a couple different stocks, if they seem to be doing well you can invest insome more.

All in all although I lost a lot of money, investing in the stock market was a great idea as now, if I ever want to invest in the real stock market I will have some experience to base important decisions on.

In art class we have been doing mixed media weather projects.Our teacher gave a presentation of differant weather to inspire us and help us chose what type of weather we would like to portray in our mixed media presentations.

I chose to do lightning because it was bold and it really impressed me. It also looked simple and easy to do. For my backround I used a mix of black and purple paint to create a stormy, angry sky. I wanted a simple thing which stood out so I used white paint and glittter to make the bolt.Finally using modge podge (something that makes the picture shiny) I pasted a picture from the internet on my board and made yellow lightenting bolts to border the picture.

Today is our first day back at school in four days (well two days not including the weekend.) This is the result of a huge ice storm in the seacoast that devastated power in resident homes. This was all ok for me and my family because we had a generator but almost all of my friends did not and were freeeeeezing for four or more days. When I was in Portsmouth on Saturday the lady in one of the stores told me that power was out in Rye for 'another two or three days. I was euphoric ( Rye is my school district) We are back at school on Tuesday but I'm hoping we'll get a snow day soon !